What does spring look like? Snow blankets Canada, U.S.

This image shows snow covering nearly half of the U.S. and most of Canada on March 26. (Image: NOAA)

Springtime: the time for flowers, newborn animals … and snow. Nearly half of the United States is currently covered in snow, as is most of Canada, as can be seen in this image from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

That's the largest extent of snow cover at this point in the season in at least 10 years, according to NOAA. Much of the snow came from a massive spring blizzard that dropped snow throughout the Midwest and East Coast, breaking records in many cities.

The town of Lincoln, Ill., broke its daily snow total of 4 inches (10 centimeters), which was set in 1947, with 10.8 inches (27 cm) of snow on Sunday (March 24), according to AccuWeather. The weather system also dropped 2.9 inches (7.4 cm) of snow in Columbus, Ohio, breaking the old record of 1.8 inches (4.6 cm) set in 1965.

Currently, 44 of 50 states have some snow on the ground. The only states without any of the fluffy stuff are Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi and Rhode Island.

The image of U.S. snow cover was created from data gathered by NOAA's Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System, which uses satellites to measure snowfall based on the amount of light reflected from the Earth's surface (snow reflects more light than bare earth).